Russia to boost military capabilities in Crimea, Kaliningrad, Arctic

In 2015, the Russian Defense Ministry plans to focus on boosting military capabilities in Crimea, the Kaliningrad region, and the Arctic, while carrying out other planned modernizations of the armed forces and drafting a new long-term defense plan.

“We are drawing up a
new Russian Federation Defense Plan for 2016-2020 to ensure
timely placing and obligatory fulfillment of state defense orders
in 2015 to have modern models of weapons and military equipment
as planned,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said, as Moscow
refocuses its major rearmament plan, worth over 20 trillion
rubles ($310 billion) over the span of 10 years, according to
anew military doctrine.

Russia’s chief of General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, said that in
2015 Russia will focus on reinforcing its military on the Crimean
peninsula, the Kaliningrad Region, and in the Arctic.

“In 2015, the Defense Ministry’s main efforts will focus on
an increase of combat capabilities of the armed forces and
increasing the military staff in accordance with military
construction plans. Much attention will be given to the groupings
in Crimea, Kaliningrad, and the Arctic,” Gerasimov said on
Tuesday.

In the Arctic, deputy Defense Minister Gen. Dmitry Bulgakov
specified that Russia will rebuild an additional 10 military
airfields in 2015. “We will reconstruct 10 airfields in the
Arctic region this year, which will bring the number to 14
operational airfields in the Arctic,” he said.

A new branch of the Russian military, the Aerospace Defense
Force, will be formed in 2015, ahead of schedule, through the
merger of Air Force and Space Forces.

“A new type of armed forces will be created in 2015, the
Aerospace Defense Force, by merging two already existing military
forces: the Air Force and Space Force,” Gerasimov said, as
Russia continues developing a reliable space echelon of the
early-warning radar system to detect missile launches.

This year, Shoigu said that Russian armed forces are set to
receive some 700 armored and 1,550 other vehicles, 126 planes, 88
helicopters, and two Iskander-M missile systems. The navy will
receive five surface warships and two multi-purpose submarines.

In 2015, one year ahead of schedule, the military will commission
a radar station Voronezh-DM in the Siberian town of Yeniseisk. A
similar one in Barnaul, Russia's Altai region, will be erected
six months ahead of schedule, the defense chief said.

A network of joint warfare training centers will be set up in
every Russian military district, which by 2020 will all be
interconnected by a single virtual battle space, according to the
minister. In order to raise the professional level of its troops,
the military hopes by the end of 2015 to recruit 52,000 contract
soldiers, in addition to conscripts.

The announced upgrades to Russia’s military capabilities fall in
line with the newly updated version of the military doctrine,
which reflects the emergence of new threats against its national
security. NATO military build-up and the American Prompt Global
Strike concept are listed among them.

As part of the overall effort to increase security and battle
readiness amid hyperbolic warmongering rhetoric from NATO,
Russia’s Defense Ministry announced in December that tens of
thousands of Russian troops would take part in Center 2015
strategic exercises that would be held simultaneously in several
areas both in Russia and abroad. In total, the ministry announced
it will hold about 4,000 various combat training missions in
2015.